


Trope #6: Pretending To Be Married

by NicoleAnell



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-23
Updated: 2011-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-26 11:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoleAnell/pseuds/NicoleAnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short fic written for bsg_epics trope challenge, for "pretending to be married."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trope #6: Pretending To Be Married

The ring was something she got from the Threes. It would make her blend more, they said, sometimes in a subtle unconscious way -- it makes her seem like someone with another life, something at stake. And she was never found out. She learned the simplest trick in the first month, when a human labor organizer was asked details about his own silver band. "That's a long story, Ms. Faust," he shook his head. "And I'm not drunk enough." She told him to call her Natalie.

She learned to paraphrase this kind of evasion for her needs. "We both work so hard," she'd tell people. "It's complicated. You know how it is?" And they imagined they did. "And I love him," she added once or twice, and _this_ was what seemed to throw them off somehow, like it was a sweet but odd response to the question; she adapted.

She would sometimes use it to elaborate her stories. "My husband," she'd say, "worked in the transportation office for years." She was careful to make it fit her cover on Geminon. She reminded herself she could simply remove it if the mission ever called for seduction. Or perhaps not -- most of the people she met were so familiar with infidelity, she wondered why humans even needed a name for it.

Eventually they _gave_ her a husband. He met her at a street corner and surprised her with a kiss on the cheek, gently tugging at her arm. "Honey," he said with an affectionate nod, the Four. She swallowed her anger at being blindsided this way. It could've been worse, more public -- she didn't think she _knew_ anyone on this street -- but someone could have told her in advance.

"We shouldn't be seen together," she tried to convince him at first. What she wanted to say was _I can do this on my own_. If either of them ever slipped up, was ever discovered in any way, the other would be suspected too; two whole _lines_ could be jeopardized. He told her she worried too much. For two weeks they attended their functions together, worked as each other's decoys as they tested and prodded various dead ends, one union lobbyist or defense contractor at a time. He would hold her hand all the way back to their apartment, until the door was shut behind them and they would separate, and go through the data the other had collected. He seemed to pause longer each time before the door, hesitating at something, and she never understood why.

"We've separated," she took to telling people later in her mission, when she went months without seeing him again. No one expected details. She learned much later that he died a traitor, and a sinful death at that, suicide beyond the Resurrection. There were stories of him being someone else's husband, a human. It was complicated and she had stopped wearing the ring.

She gave it away once to another Six, a plan she'd been rather proud of. She'd been wrong about it being just a symbol for others to see; the power was also in the wearer. "It's to help you remember your life," she told her sister. "How much has changed." The Six was trembling and did not like change. Natalie stroked her hand and said, "When you wake up from your dreams, it'll help you remember where you are."

"I know where I am," she said, defensive and hesitating. But she did not like change and did not like having things fixed to her hands. The human used tape and not metal, her wrists and not her fingers, so Natalie couldn't imagine how this was an issue, but she was ever patient.

"You'll _feel_ where you are," she told her. She was trying to remember parts of vows, something she might have memorized to explain this, and she wondered if there were models she could ask from experience -- it couldn't _only_ be her Four -- but the Fours had all gone now, and she hadn't asked. She told her sister, "You'll have something to look at and remember everything that happened since we left that planet. All the good that's happened since. That you're home now." She kissed her lips. She did not say, _And loved._ She only wanted for her to look at it and see another life.


End file.
